


All We Know of Heaven

by DesertVixen



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Day of the Dead, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2533076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(slightly AU - assumes Ivanova does not leave Babylon 5 after Season 4)</p><p> Susan Ivanova's experience during the Brakiri Day of the Dead</p>
            </blockquote>





	All We Know of Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sprocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprocket/gifts).



She had agreed to the Brakiri request to buy a portion of Babylon 5 for the evening. It wasn’t the strangest request she dealt with concerning one of the alien cultures on the station. 

She had checked that her agreement did not obligate her to take part in any negotiations or to wear green or purple. 

Her own quarters were within the section of the station the Brakiri were buying, and Ivanova briefly contemplated taking the night shift in C&C and giving Corwin a much-deserved break. In the end, however, she was intrigued by the idea of a festival that included people returning from the dead. She was a woman with no shortage of the dead. 

At the heart of it, she couldn’t imagine running away from the unknown. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but Susan Ivanova was sure, now more than ever, that death from curiosity was preferable to life with regrets about missed opportunities.

So she picked up dinner in the Zocalo and walked to her quarters to await whatever happened.

*** *** *** 

It was sudden. One moment she was alone in her quarters, and in the next moment Susan Ivanova sensed another presence in the room behind her. She turned, and found herself looking into her mother’s eyes. Sophie Ivanova had been a lovely woman, before she had been forced to choose between leaving her family behind or taking the telepathy-suppressing drugs that allowed her to remain physically present, but stole her soul. Now her eyes sparkled as Sophie lifted her hand to brush Susan’s cheek. “Susan.”

The feel of her mother’s hand – warm, solid, real – helped her realize that she wasn’t dreaming, although she dug a nail into her palm to see if it hurt.

It did. 

“Mama?” Susan whispered.

“Susotchka.” Susan found herself enfolded in her mother’s arms, and more importantly, felt her mother touch her mind. She had tried once to explain how intense and intimate that communication was, but she hadn’t been able to express how soothing and peaceful it was, like a mother cat purring to her kittens. It hadn’t just been her fear that Psi Corps would discover her latent telepathy that made her so adamantly refuse to be scanned, but her fear that such a scan would somehow replace or wipe out that last precious memory of her mother’s mind – that it would make her lose her last link to Sophie Ivanova.

She was never sure how long they just stood there. Susan simply wanted to hold on and never let go. Eventually, they sat on the couch, so that Sophie could devour every detail of Susan’s life, so Susan could try to burn this memory into her mind for all time.

Too soon – all too soon – Sophie stood, her eyes worried. 

Without her mother saying a word, Susan knew that their time was almost gone. If she was ever going to ask the question she’d wondered about for all these years, it had to be now.

“Why did you do it?”

Sophie took her daughter’s hand between her own. “I had to escape the drugs. They did not make the voices stop, and they made me empty.” Her hands tightened. “I did not want to leave you, my Susotchka, and my Andrei and my Ganya, but it was the only way.”

Sophie stepped back. “Let me have another perfect memory of you, Susan.” Susan remembered telling John Sheridan about the last time she had seen her mother, how Sophie had watched her so that she would have one last perfect memory to take to heaven.

Susan looked into her mother’s face – alive in a way she could barely remember before this night – and made her own perfect memory. “I love you, Mama,” she said softly.

“I love you, Susan.” Sophie reached out to touch Susan’s cheek again.

Then, as suddenly as she had come, Sophie was gone, leaving only her memory behind.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Your request said no crazy AU, but I thought this slight one would be okay, and I think I avoided all the other things you said you didn't want.
> 
> References to various Babylon 5 episodes, including "Eyes", "The Long Night", and "Geometry of Shadows", and of course "Day of the Dead". However, I kept the details of Sophie's death because there is a discrepancy in how old she says she is in "The Long Night" and how old she should be based on other episodes.


End file.
